


It's the Fluorescence

by TheOceanIsMyInkwell



Series: Who We Smooch in the Shadows [2]
Category: What We Do in the Shadows (TV)
Genre: (sort of), Crack, Fluff, Getting Together, Holding Hands, Humor, M/M, Movie Night, Mutual Pining, Snowed In, Twilight References, WWS21, elaborate metaphors and pop culture references as professions of love, idiots to lovers, listen. if you clicked on this title you know what you're in for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 16:21:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29371497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOceanIsMyInkwell/pseuds/TheOceanIsMyInkwell
Summary: “You are so very cross this morning,” says Nandor. He lays the back of his cool hand against Guillermo’s forehead, as if that’s going to fucking do anything. “Is it that milk you are drinking?”The eternally annoyed part of Guillermo wants to knock his master’s hand away, but he’s touch-starved and pathetic, so he just stands there like an idiot with the carton halfway to his lips and Nandor nursing him ineffectually. “It’s not milk. It’s eggnog.”Nandor rolls his eyes. “Sure, if that is what the cool kids are calling it these days.”“It’s not milk. I’m literally lactose intolerant.”“If you cannot tolerate it, then why are you drinking so much of the goat’s semen in the first place?”“I--what?”--Or: Guillermo and Nandor are snowed in by a blizzard, neither of them can sleep, and Nandor wants to watchTwilightto pass the time and take his mind off his thirst. How they end up holding hands, Guillermo has no idea to this day.
Relationships: Guillermo de la Cruz/Nandor the Relentless
Series: Who We Smooch in the Shadows [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2143422
Comments: 14
Kudos: 39





	It's the Fluorescence

**Author's Note:**

> Alternatively titled "This Fucking Blizzard," upon the vote of my mate Bee, but babies are still subscribed to me and I didn't wanna drop that unwanted nonsense in their inbox 😂
> 
> This fulfills the prompts "hand holding" and "pillow talk" (sorta??) for the Who We Smooch in the Shadows prompt event. Evidently I'm incapable of moving on from my favorite prompts and just keep rehashing them over and over instead of filling new ones.

Guillermo can’t sleep because of the fucking blizzard outside and he just really, really wishes he’d decided to buy that third carton of eggnog at Stop & Shop the last time he was there.

Now he’s curled up in a veritable ball of misery under his covers on his cot, glasses jammed askew on his nose, socked feet rubbing together in a blur, gaze fixed murderously on the blank paneled wall across from him on the other end of his closet room. One of his earbuds fell out long ago, when his shivering shook it out and he was too tired of nature’s bullshit to keep trying to tune out the lashing of the tree branches and the shriek of the wind outside his windows. He already lined the windows around the house with extra balled-up strips of newspaper, and now the earth mocks him by rattling the glass extra hard after all of his dutiful efforts.

To top it all off, he has exactly half a cup left of eggnog sitting at the bottom of the carton in his mini fridge and he’s anxious that if he consumes it now, he won’t have his comfort drink for later when the storm inevitably gets ten times worse. Because life just fucking works that way around him, apparently.

Guillermo is about to roll over into a differently oriented ball of rage at the inconsiderate howl of precipitation outside, when the flimsy door of his closet bangs open. He cracks his neck upward with a scowl.

“Guillermo,” Nandor complains immediately from the doorway. “This fucking blizzard!”

_Well, that makes two of us. Would you look at that--something we actually agree about._

Guillermo heaves a sigh, trying (and probably failing, since it’s Nandor) to communicate the depths of his _what the fuck do you want now_ sentiment. “What are you doing up, master?”

“It was time for me to get up, Guillermo. And you were not there to help me out of my coffin.”

Guillermo clicks on his phone, brings it close to his face, then without changing his expression flips around the screen to show Nandor the time. “It’s just past 2 in the afternoon, master. You should still be asleep.”

Nandor hovers in the doorway, halfway between a grimace and the equivalent of an awkward smile for him. He wiggles his fingers distractedly. “Yes, well, I could not sleep because of the fucking blizzard. And then I heard you moving around and needed to know what you were doing. What are you doing?”

Still flat on his side, staring straight at Nandor, Guillermo flaps the edge of his blanket demonstratively. “Trying to sleep.” _And failing to because of aforementioned fucking blizzard_.

Nandor makes a face. “Why aren’t you sleeping in the blue room? Colin Robinson saw to the proofing of the sound in that space long ago, for sexy times purposes, of course, but he is Colin Robinson and I did not ask about the sexy times. Because he would drain me, and also I was not interested.” Nandor gestures languidly. “Because he is Colin Robinson.”

Fair enough, Guillermo decides. “But there’s no heating in that zone.”

“Yes, Nadja decided a couple of years ago that we did not need the heating.”

If Guillermo recalls correctly, that was because Laszlo kept eating the repairmen from the HVAC company before they could actually get to work diagnosing the problem. After the third guy disappeared, well--the company decided that the residents of the ghostly Staten Island mansion must be treating their apprentices so atrociously to make them straight up leave their posts forever. It was a whole row between Nadja and Laszlo for weeks, until Nadja decided that they were fucking vampires and didn’t need the heat anyway. Colin Robinson’s occasional comfort for sexy times purposes be damned.

“Well, I need the heating. I’m very much a human,” Guillermo deadpans.

Nandor waves a hand in his direction. “Come, come. I can hear the chattering of your teeth and it is reminding me of the time I pillaged that village in the north with the thirty male virgins--”

Guillermo decides to nope out of this narrative right now. He swings his legs over the cot, shoves his feet into his fuzzy slippers with the scuffed-up nubuck toes, and grabs the carton of eggnog from his mini fridge and shuffles out past Nandor.

Nandor continues regaling him from behind with recollections of said virginal wonders, to Guillermo’s straight-faced and completely unsurprising boredom. The two of them are already approaching the doorway of the blue room when Nandor interrupts himself with the cry: “Guillermo! I know why I could not sleep. I have been thirsting for the blood of young male virgins again. Preferably the ones you get who wear those idiotic caps for the baseball and the jackets with letters. Those are particularly tasty, especially when it is cold. That is what I have been missing.”

Guillermo stops, turns on his heel, and faces his master with a dry, “It’s negative fourteen degrees outside, master. I’m not going out and just grabbing a drunk virgin frat boy off the street.”

Nandor frowns. “You have been getting very lazy, Guillermo. Sometimes I think--”

“I’m not going out because I will physically freeze my balls off doing so.”

“I didn’t think the use of balls was required for this.”

Guillermo gulps down his eggnog with a _glug_ and just barely refrains from rolling his eyes. “Also, do you have any clue how fucking hard it is to find another virgin frat boy?”

The implication sails completely--predictably--over Nandor’s imperious head. “Of course I don’t, Guillermo, that’s why I have a familiar to worry about that for me. You are the waiter. I order, you deliver.”

“...And I’m the cook, and the janitor, and also the butcher who raises the cow to get it to the restaurant in the first place,” Guillermo mutters under his breath.

“You are so very cross this morning,” says Nandor. He lays the back of his cool hand against Guillermo’s forehead, as if that’s going to fucking do anything. “Is it that milk you are drinking?”

The eternally annoyed part of Guillermo wants to knock his master’s hand away, but he’s touch-starved and pathetic, so he just stands there like an idiot with the carton halfway to his lips and Nandor nursing him ineffectually. “It’s not milk. It’s eggnog.”

Nandor rolls his eyes. “Sure, if that is what the cool kids are calling it these days.”

“It’s not milk. I’m literally lactose intolerant.”

“If you cannot tolerate it, then why are you drinking so much of the goat’s semen in the first place?”

“I--what?” Guillermo blinks. “Can you stop touching my face now?”

Nandor hisses moodily and retracts his hand.

“I...don’t even have the energy to respond to that,” Guillermo says with a sigh. He downs the rest of his drink, chucks the carton into the nearest trash bin, and steps into the blue room to retrieve the fur-lined blankets folded and stacked at the foot of the unused bed.

“I am very generous and understanding, you know, contrary to what my roommates may be telling you about me,” Nandor says, trailing after his familiar. “I simply did not want to embarrass you.”

 _Sure_ , Guillermo thinks. _That’s likely._

“Why are you in the blue room?” Nandor asks, as if only now realizing where they are standing. “I thought your human balls were going to freeze off if you sleep here.”

“I’m not. I’m getting the blankets.” Guillermo gestures superfluously with his arms laden with the furs.

Nandor clucks his tongue and flicks his fingers at the fireplace in one fluid motion. Within seconds, a blaze sparks to life and crackles warmly from behind the grate. (When the fuck did they get a fireplace in here?)

“Wait,” says Guillermo. “When the fuck did we get a fireplace in here?”

“Now you can sleep here,” Nandor says, completely ignoring him. “No need to be carrying these furs back and forth. Here.” He reaches forward to take the entire stack from his familiar’s arms and drapes them half-artistically, half-haphazardly across the middle of the blue bed.

Guillermo shuffles closer to his master leaned over the bed, still hung up on the whole _why do we have a fireplace in here and why didn’t you just fucking light it years ago so somebody could use this room without dying of hypothermia_ aspect of the situation. Gingerly he sits down, feeling the unsettling coolness of the duvet against his pajama-clad thighs as he sinks onto the mattress, but he quickly finds the place heating up from the cozy flames.

When Nandor turns around and reclines on his side to look at Guillermo, relaxed as a cat and vaguely channeling the classic Cleopatra pose, Guillermo raises a brow at him. “Did you need anything else, master?”

“Yes,” Nandor says immediately. “Get your intelligent machine in here, please. We will be watching the saga of the rainy vampires.”

Guillermo leans his head back, closes his eyes briefly, and draws a deep breath for the inner strength to put up with all this bullshit at what is practically the wee hours of the morning for him. “...You mean _Twilight_?”

“Yes,” Nandor says airily, with another round hand gesture, as if deigning to name these things by their proper title is beneath the status of a vampire. “Is that not what people do when they cannot sleep?”

Guillermo is about to correct him that it’s what people do when _both_ people cannot sleep and want to stay up together. But then his gaze slides to the furs strewn across the bed, and Nandor’s lazy form sprawled before him in his unlaced shirt and loose-tumbling hair, and then to the roaring fire in the corner of the room, and he thinks--this might not be too eternally annoying of a situation after all.

And so ten minutes later finds them leaned back against the numerous and slightly musty-smelling twentieth-century pillows while Guillermo balances his newly charged laptop on his knees and wiggles subtly to find an angle at which he can rest without brushing too close against his master.

Nandor seems irritatingly calm about the setup, which only highlights how fucking unnecessary the gallop of Guillermo’s heart is, being in this rare proximity to the vampire. Guillermo can hardly focus on any scene of _Twilight_ beyond the first ten minutes on an ordinary day--having seen it more times than he can count, including with a former crush from high school--and the fact that the curling end of the front strands of Nandor’s hair is dangling between them and practically caressing Guillermo’s shoulder is doing nothing to aid his attention span. It downright _inconveniences_ him that Nandor’s gaze is glued to the screen, with his lips slightly parted, and the line that usually runs between his brows is smoothed away in blissful relaxation.

Guillermo has seen Nandor watch _Twilight_ before. Out of all four movies, the first is Nandor’s favorite (Guillermo is quite in agreement with this) and the one that he’s watched twice as often as the rest. Those times, however, he always just had his familiar set up the intelligent machine to play the film, while Guillermo wandered off to do...familiar duties and whatnot and occasionally listen in on his master humming in approval or dismay at the screen through the door of his crypt left ajar.

This is the first time they are watching it together.

Guillermo really doesn’t know if he should be reading too much into this. It’s cold outside, there’s a fucking blizzard going on, Nandor is thirsty for a very specific type of drunk virgin frat boy blood, and he’s probably just attracted to the scent of the only breathing, blood-pumping human entity in the house. That’s all there is to it.

He supposes he should be a tad more alarmed at the implication that his neck is on the line here. But his lifelong dream has always sort of directly entailed putting his neck on said line, so he decides not to think too much of it.

But when Bella enters the classroom and her scent driven by the electric fan through the air makes Edward flinch, Nandor hisses in sympathy and Guillermo has to wonder. As subtly as he can, he wrinkles his nose and gives himself a quick sniff.

(He knows his human nose can only catch the semi-permanent combination of Tide pen, dried blood, and expired cologne, but a guy can dream, okay?)

Almost with telepathic coordination, Nandor sinks back further into the pillows after that scene. His torso tips ever so slightly to the side until his shoulder is very squarely, very literally pressing against Guillermo’s own.

If Guillermo’s knee jerks a little and the laptop slides to the side an inch before he catches it, well--it’s all just a coincidence.

Guillermo gets sufficiently distracted from the physical contact when Laurent appears on the screen and Nandor makes some appreciative noises in the back of his throat. Nandor’s always had a crush on Laurent, out of all the original _Twilight_ villains, and Guillermo knows this. He takes advantage of his master’s distraction to shift his body so his right leg doesn’t completely fall asleep.

To his chagrin--mingled, regrettably, with secret delight--the movement sends Nandor pressing further against his familiar until every square inch in a line down their upper arms is touching.

Shit, shit, shit. This is not what Guillermo intended.

Yeah, his lower half might not be seeing any disadvantages to the situation right now, but Guillermo’s brain is well aware that this one moment will forever be seared into his memory to relive over and over again during his weekly Regretting His Unrequited Crush on a Seven-Hundred-Year-Old Bloodsucker with a Toddler Complex highlights reel.

The rest of the film whizzes by like that, Nandor consumed by the ever-thrilling action of the baseball scene and the chase scenes and the final hunt, while his familiar is just as wrapped up by an entirely different problem: getting his dick and his brain and his heart to fucking calm down.

By the time Bella descends the stairs with her clunky leg cast and Billy does his awkward supportive dad routine, Guillermo thinks his erection is decently deflated enough that he can shift his position again to relieve the pressure on his other leg, and this time not prompt Nandor to press closer against him. Slowly, carefully, with all the subtlety and artful casualness he never knew he possessed, Guillermo manages to do so. He settles back against the pillows with his heart rate slowing to a more normal pace, and just about breathes a sigh of relief when Nandor doesn’t shift closer in his direction.

Short-lived is the fanfare of _mission accomplished_ in his mind, though, because the moment Edward holds out his hand and Bella takes it to be waltzed gently around the fairy-lit gazebo, Nandor lets out a sound halfway between a sigh and a sob and drops his head sideways on his familiar’s shoulder.

Holy fucking shit.

“He loves her, Guillermo,” Nandor says in a voice that’s suspiciously gravelly after going so long without speaking. “And she loves him. How could she look into his eyes and see how he looks at her, and not know he actually loves her?”

Guillermo doesn’t fucking know. All he knows is that his master’s head is on his fucking shoulder, right after he managed to control his raging boner, and he has way more pressing problems right now than Edward Fucking Cullen and his inability to have healthy communication patterns with a human girl.

“He’s been alive for a long time,” Guillermo finally finds the wherewithal to reply in just as hushed a tone. “He has all sorts of powers. It’s kind of hard for her to believe that he really sees anything special in her.”

Yeah, he definitely doesn’t sound strangled.

Nandor scoffs. “That is ridiculous. Edward isn’t special because of his powers.”

Okay...Guillermo has to disagree pretty majorly with that, but he’s too wound up to come up with a coherent rebuttal.

“Bella is special because she is human,” Nandor goes on musing. “Look, her strength comes from inside. She does not need to be biting people or flying through the trees to show she is brave. She is really too good for Edward and he is fortunate to be around her. Ah, but what does this matter.”

Oh, but it does matter. It matters a lot. Guillermo is just beginning to realize this, as the fog of his preoccupation with Nandor’s touch against his torso is dissipating and the actual weight of their sleepy conversation hits him.

“Vampires are...a metaphor,” Guillermo says carefully. “Like...I studied this before in this one class I took during my first semester of college. It was really interesting, actually. We talked a little bit about how vampires represent the embodiment of power, especially for people who have been pushed away by society.”

There’s no response for a minute, save the small _scritch_ of Nandor worrying his lip with his fang.

“Not that--not that vampires are purely _fictional_ ,” Guillermo tacks on lamely, belatedly. “It’s just--well, it was fascinating to look at it from that angle.”

“But the human is the one who doesn’t need the fancy teeth and the speed like a jaguar to be the hero in these stories,” Nandor rejoins slowly.

“Well, no,” Guillermo concedes. So his master really is interested in this concept, then. Guillermo realizes that weird conversations have transpired between them and decides to roll with it. “But in the case of _Twilight_ , both the human and the vampire need each other.”

“The human shows the vampire what is beautiful about life,” says Nandor. 

“And the vampire shows the human what freedom is like,” says Guillermo.

“No,” says Nandor. “No, no. That’s not it, Guillermo. The vampire shows the human that she is special.”

“Fine,” says his familiar. “They’re both special. They both need each other, to protect each other in different ways.”

“The human doesn’t always need protecting. What about those stories of yours where they go about staking their vampire enemies? That Buffy and Spiffy you always like.”

“Spike,” says Guillermo. “Buffy and Spike. And I thought we were just talking about _Twilight_.”

Nandor bares his teeth sleepily in agreement. His eyes are half-lidded now, his cheek drooped lower against Guillermo’s shoulder, as the laptop slowly slides off the human’s lap. “I don’t like your Buffy and Spike picture. I like _Twilight_ better.”

“I know, master.” A crime to concede to Nandor about something as awe-inspiring as _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ , but worse things have happened.

“I don’t like _New Moon_ ,” Nandor mumbles a beat later.

(See, so he _can_ remember the titles of specific movies. Lazy bastard.)

“Oh?” Guillermo mumbles back. “Why’s that?”

The logs in the fireplace snap and crackle in the periphery of Guillermo’s consciousness. He relaxes himself to the infectious warmth, wrapped up in the furs and nuzzling his cheek against the mussed-up hair at the top of Nandor’s head.

“The vampire leaves,” Nandor complains. “That’s not true. The vampire never leaves. It is always the human who leaves--the human who is fickle-minded and cannot see what the vampire feels for them.”

That makes Guillermo’s eyes snap open and his heart stutter to a halt.

Okay, he’s definitely had enough of extended fucking metaphors for one night.

“Master?” he murmurs cautiously.

Nandor doesn’t respond. Not verbally, at least. Instead, his tresses shift and tickle Guillermo’s cheek as he moves his head to press his nose against the round of his familiar’s shoulder. Guillermo sits, frozen, joints locked, hand balled into a fist on the other side of the bed where Nandor can’t see.

Suddenly there’s a strange warmth against the back of Guillermo’s other hand. He glances down. Nandor has inched his fingers toward his, until his knuckles are just resting against Guillermo’s own. The vampire’s palm is upturned. His skin, normally cool and surprising to the touch, has somehow absorbed some of the heat of the blaze in the fireplace. Or maybe it’s just Guillermo’s wild imagination, since he’s gone completely off the hinges tonight.

Nandor’s nose presses more insistently into the flesh of his arm. Guillermo’s jaw clenches. The ghost of Nandor’s breath rushes over his skin, parted only by the flimsy threadbare flannel of his shirt.

“Humans are so fucking blind,” Nandor says. “Especially when they are wearing glasses.”

He doesn’t know what drives him, but somehow, that is the last straw. Guillermo latches his pinky onto Nandor’s. Nandor responds at lightning speed, curling his own pinky to draw his familiar’s hand closer. Then he slides his hand across the fur blanket and grabs onto Guillermo’s whole hand, firmly, suddenly, completely.

Oh.

 _Oh_.

Fucking hell.

Guillermo swallows audibly.

“Your heart sounds like the hooves of my John galloping in the wilderness,” Nandor murmurs.

Yeah, Guillermo thinks wildly--that sounds about right.

He looks down at his master and is almost jumpscared to find the vampire staring up at him through his lashes, pupils dilated like he’s never seen before. “Your eyes,” Guillermo chokes out. “They look--so black. And wide.”

Well, Nandor did basically say he’s an idiot. Guillermo is just living up to his branding.

“It’s the fluorescence,” Nandor says.

Scratch that, they’re both idiots. Guillermo will not be accused of baldfaced stupidity without dragging Nandor the Relentless down with him.

Which is precisely why they both refuse to get up--even when Guillermo desperately needs to pee about an hour later--and instead lie there breathing into the somnolent warmth of the blue room flickering with shadows cast by the fireplace, and they drift into a slumber with their hands still clasped between them on the bed, as the blizzard rages on forgotten around them.

**Author's Note:**

> I AM very proud of the eggnog joke and I WILL say it.
> 
> Thanks as always to my mates for goading me gleefully into writing and finishing this all tonight. You know who you are, you lucky devils 😏
> 
> Feedback is much appreciated! I'm especially dying to know what you thought of the jokes (though thoughts on the...y'know...hand holding and yearning are equally welcomed and entertaining). Don't be shy! Ily and thanks for reading <3 -kaleb
> 
> my socials:  
> tumblr: theoceanismyinkwell  
> insta: kc.barrie  
> wattpad: kalebbarie


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